Clockwork Lemon

Adventures in Pesto Bread

 

I'm calling this post "Adventures in Pesto Bread" because the although the recipe for pesto is ready to go, the recipe for the bread aspect of it needs some tweaking. It's mostly because I don't have an enriched white bread recipe that I'm 100% happy with. I have basic white recipes and a whole slew of oatmeal and whole wheat recipes that I bake on a weekly rotation, but the enriched white still eludes me.

Maybe I'm too picky but I want the bread to be soft and almost peel-able but still have structure for add-ins (such as pesto) and I want it to be flavorful but not too sweet. This version is soft and strong but a little bit too sweet and a little bit rich/heavy on the butter/oil.

Overall the bread was delicious..really really delicious. It's pesto swirled inside homemade bread how could it not be tasty? But something was not exactly what I was looking for and I know that it was because I haven't paired it up with the right bread dough yet. Guess I better make a few more batches (not exactly a terrible fate)

 

The pesto itself was amazing in the way that only homemade pesto can be. In fact, out of the container that I made for bread recipe experiments over 3/4s of it made it's way into my lunches and dinners and even on my eggs in the morning. Looks like I will also have to make more pesto

Good thing it's ridiculously easy to make. Just need fresh basil, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, lemon zest, garlic, and olive oil and a handy-dandy food processor (is it wrong to be in love with a piece of kitchen equipment??)

 

For this version I toasted the pine nuts until slightly golden to bring out more of their flavor.

 

Then I ground up the nuts, basil, and garlic in the mini bowl of the food processor...

 

...then slowly poured a steady stream of olive oil into the herb and but mixture. The cheese got added in next and after a few pluses the pesto was ready to go.

 

It's tasty the day that you make it, but I prefer the flavor on the second day after the garlic and cheese and basil have had time to all meld together.

Then I promised myself to not eat it all (and managed to salvage about 1/4 of this batch for bread)

 

 

The oil in pesto makes it too heavy to just do a regular swirl with in a loaf of bread. As it bakes the swirl will sag and you'll end up with a big empty shell at the top and a squished looking swirl at the bottom. To avoid that I rolled out the dough relatively thinly and then spread a layer of the pesto over the entire thing.

 

 

Then I rolled up the dough and cut it into two equal pieces and pinches the edges of those pieces shut.

 

I used those two pieces to make a twist (like you do with babka or coconut swirl bread) and left it in the pan to rise.

 

 

It smelled amazing in the oven. Fresh bread, garlic, basil, and cheese all making my kitchen smell like some sort of Italian restaurant. They came out golden brown with a great rise.

It was torturous waiting for it to cool for an hour before slicing into it to see what pattern the pesto had made. I had my fingers crossed that it wasn't just a beautiful golden shell with a mush of squished bread and pesto inside.

 

Voila! Twisting the two spirals not only makes a pretty pattern but also helps the bread get a little bit more structure.

The holes make it not the best choice for a sandwich but it made an amazing base for my poached egg and avocado in the morning. Then the perfect side with my soup for lunch.

If you already have an enriched white bread recipe that you love then I suggest filling it with some pesto and enjoying this delicious bread. Meanwhile, I'll be in my kitchen happy to have an excuse to bake an absurd amount of bread.

 

Basil Pesto

1/3 cup pine nuts

 2 cups fresh basil

2 large cloves of garlic

zest of one lemon

1/2 cup olive oil

3/4 cup grated Parmesan

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Lay the pine nuts on a cookie sheet and roast in oven until lightly browned (takes a few minutes. Keep checking the nuts and shaking the sheet to roll them over)

2. In a food processor place the roasted pine nuts, basil, lemon zest, and garlic. Pulse until finely chopped. Use a spatula to scrape down the bowl.

3. Turn the food processor on and pour the olive oil in a steady thin stream down the feed tube. Continue until all of the oil has been added.

4. Pulse in the Parmesan cheese until combined. Store in the fridge.

If the rolling and shaping technique for the bread isn't clear enough in this post I also do step by step photos in this post. It is the same but you don't slice the rolled dough in half before twisting it

 

Cashew Cream

While on the hunt for more recipes to test out in my Cuisinart food processor I came across cashew cream and cashew milk a number of times. It's supposed to be a better dairy substitute than soy milk because the fat from the cashews allows it to act more like dairy when making sauces or baking.

I have no issues with delicious delicious dairy but I like to mix things up with soy milk or rice milk sometimes so I wanted to give cashew cream a try. Variety is always a good thing in my opinion.

 

Homemade Butter in the Food Processor

Before trying this batch of butter, the last time that I had fresh homemade butter was in grade three when half of our class got to bake a loaf of bread and the other half got to shake a jar full of cream until it turned into butter. I was placed in the butter-making half  and was pretty excited about it. Obviously we couldn't all shake the jar at the same time so we just passed it around and shook it until our tiny arms got tired.

In retrospect, the kids who got to make bread had the better deal.

I've been testing out a Cuisinart Elite Collection 12-Cup (3 L) Food Processor and I was super excited (like grade-three style excited) to discover via Pinterest that it's easy to turn cream into butter with it. *insert clapping of hands and squealing*

Maybe it has to do with my childhood obsession with pioneers and the Little House on the Prairies book series..

 

Layered Lemon Tart & Mother's Day Giveaway with Cuisinart (Contest Closed)

This is an exciting post for me to write because it has a lot of good things going for it. First off this whole post is to celebrate Mother's Day and all the wonderful moms out there (especially mine) who deserve a special day.

Secondly there is a tart. A lemony, creamy, tangy tart topped with whipping cream and any kind of fruit you wish. (It is a very very good thing. The kind of thing that children who love their mothers make for Mother's Day)

And thirdly I've paired up with Cuisinart for an awesome giveaway so that you can make your mom all sorts of delicious stuff (or even give her the prize if you win, making you the obvious choice for the Favorite Child Award).

Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread (version II)

I already have a recipe on this blog for oatmeal buttermilk bread, and it's a pretty tasty recipe at that. It was my go-to loaf for quite some time and no matter what I'm sure that I'll keep making it occasionally.

However, the best part about making bread is how many amazing recipes there are out there for everyday loaves. How can I commit to one oatmeal buttermilk loaf when there are so many others out there begging to be tried? I was so pleased with how all the loaves that I've made with this recipe have turned out. I am a sucker for a tall loaf with a soft crumb that toasts up perfectly. 

 

When you bake bread with oatmeal is it very important to use old fashioned or large flake oats. They absorb more water than the instant or quick oats so make sure that you have the right ones. If you try to bake with quick oats you'll end up with a tasty but sort of sad and lumpy looking loaf that is going to hurt your feelings when you pull it out of the oven.

You want to open your oven and be greeted by a beautiful tall loaf of bread, not a flat-ish lumpy thing that makes you go "oh...hope that thing is edible".

The right oats = beautiful bread.

Earl Grey Shortbread with Orange Glaze

These sophisticated little shortbread bites are flavored with earl grey tea and orange zest and then drizzled with a mandarin orange glaze. I liked them on the first day that I made them but I loved them once they had a chance to sit overnight. They are the kind of cookie that just gets better with age.

I had recently picked up Martha Stewart's cookie book and was dying to try a recipe. Actually, more like dying to try 25, 30, 40 of the recipes. The more that I went between the pages trying to narrow it down, the more recipes I ended up adding to my list. In the end I handed the book over to my friend Noelle and told her to pick one of the recipes from the dog-eared pages for me.Left to my own devices  I'm happy to just make lists upon lists of things to bake and do without ever getting around to the actual doing part of things.

 

Considering that Noelle's visits always involve tea (always) this recipe is very fitting. Plus it was a snap to put together. In fact, it was so easy (and delicious) that I made the cookies two days in a row.

The first step is to grind up earl grey tea leaves into a fine powder. This tea is already ground very fine but I gave it a whirl in a spice grinder anyways. For the second batch I skipped that step and there was no noticeable difference.